NCOM3003 Spring08

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Hello, all!

Welcome to the wiki for the New Media Art class!
This wiki is dedicated to the sharing and exchange of information for the New Media Art class
in the Adult BA program at the New School: NCOM 3003 A, CRN: 4574.

For more information on what a wiki is and how to use it, scroll down the page to General wiki info.



Contents

[edit] Syllabus

New Media Art
NCOM 3003 A CRN: 4574
 Instructor: Josephine Dorado
Contact me by email

Course description:
This course is designed as an overview of digital media and its uses in contemporary artistic creation. It will give you an overview of ideas by artists, writers and scientists who have bridged discourses between the arts and computer science. In order to get a sense of the ever-evolving world of new media and its place within a broader history of ideas, the class will consist of lecture, looking, listening and discussion in more or less equal parts. Readings are assigned most weeks; discussions about them will take place in the following class and on the class blog, generously interspersed with relevant examples of art, music, literature, and hybrid media.


[edit] Our tools

The materials are available on the Internet and/or downloadable on our class portal:

  • You will also need access to either a webcam or a digital video camera.

We will also be using a variety of tools available on the Internet:

For a full list plus other available tools, see the Resources on the class wiki.

Optional - for those of you desiring more theory discussion, you may want to subscribe to the following list, which has thought-provoking discussion focusing on media art, technology, and theory with an emphasis on social contexts:


[edit] Your contributions

Participation. Because this class is a seminar, your thoughtful participation is essential to its success. You are required to contribute—courteously and meaningfully—to discussions in class and on the class blog. Participation is worth 20% of your final grade.

Attendance. Two absences are excusable; a third absence (and each subsequent absence) will result in the loss of a letter grade. Punctuality is important too – three latenesses or more will be counted as one absence.

Assignments. There are a series of assignments throughout the term. Completion of these assignments brings familiarity with some of the tools available for collaborating in a networked environment, while simultaneously discussing the concepts upon which they are based and the community and kinds of collaboration that develop around them. These assignments are worth 30% of your final grade.

Event Reviews. Throughout the semester there will be opportunities to view media arts installations and events. We’ll keep a running list of relevant events, and I encourage you to visit as many as you can. By the end of the semester, I’d like for you to post critiques for two of those events on the class blog and tag it “critique”. Please describe the event, address the key theoretical issues the artist(s) are addressing, and assess their success in grappling with those issues. These reviews are worth 20% of your final grade and are due by May 5, though you may post them at any time.

Final. Throughout the semester, you will most likely come across ideas, arenas, individuals, etc., about which or whom you would like to know more. Common themes will develop and you will be required to complete a paper or project involving one of those themes. You can collaborate with other individuals in the class, if you so desire. The project can manifest itself in a variety of forms, including a paper, a presentation, a video piece, an sound piece, a mashup, a networked art piece, etc. This final project will give you the opportunity to delve deeper into a research area of personal interest. Document your progress and process on the class blog. Post images/sound/video on sites like flickr, youtube, etc. and link to them on the blog. Address the key theoretical concepts involved as well as your thoughts about the process and output. You should begin thinking about potential topics immediately—but you must make sure to choose your theme and partners and post a one-paragraph proposal on the class wiki by April 2. This project is worth 30% of your final grade.


[edit] Our schedule

[edit] WEEK 1: Jan 23-30

An overview of new media art: concepts and examples.

What is “New Media Art”? What is Old Media vs. New Media? What are some examples?

Readings:

Examples:

Assignment 1.
a. Create a del.icio.us account, if you don’t already have one, and add funksoup to your del.icio.us network. You can import your bookmarks into your account or leave it as is. One of the first bookmarks you may want to post is http://del.icio.us/funksoup/NewMedia which is how I’ve tagged links that relate to new media art. When you come across a link that you think is pertinent to the class, post it to your del.icio.us favorites. Links that people in your network have posted show up under “your network.” This way, we can share relevant links. You can also post a link specifically to someone in your network by specifying whom in “your network” the link is for (i.e., “for:funksoup”). If you’re new to del.icio.us, you might find this tutorial helpful: Useful: A beginner’s guide to del.icio.us


[edit] WEEK 2: Jan 30-Feb 6

The structures of the Internet and net.art

How did the Internet develop? How does this affect the way that we interact and the art that is being made? What is net.art? What kinds of changes have happened with respect to authorship and audience?

Readings:

Part 1: <http://diy.video24-7.org/2007/01/24/henry-jenkins-at-diy-media-seminar-from-youtube-to-youniversity/>.
Part 2: <http://diy.video24-7.org/2007/01/25/from-youtube-to-youniversity-henry-jenkins-at-acc-part-two/>.

Optional readings:

  • Excerpt from Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. “Introduction: Rhizome.” A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: 1987. pp. 3-25.
  • Excerpt from Oosterhuis, Kas. Hyperbodies: Towards an E-motive Architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2003: from “Distributed Being” to “ Transaction Spaces.” pp. 36-69.


Examples:

swarms and network visualizations:

net.art etc.:

  • http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/flou/ - Flou- "Flou (pronounced "flew") is not exactly a game; you do fly a ship through space, but you cannot shoot anything, score points, or win or lose. The focus, rather, is on the soundtrack: as you navigate through a 3D world and zoom through objects in space, you add loops and apply effects to an ever-evolving musical mix. You can also design your own worlds to fly through and share them with other Flou users.
  • http://rhizome.org/commissions/2006/eternalsunset.php - Eternal Sunset continually presents live images of the sunset using existing online webcams from all over the world. As the sunset moves westward, Eternal Sunset tunes into different webcams, chasing the sunset around the globe.
  • http://www.torrentraiders.com/ - Torrent Raiders is a dynamic network visualization realized through the idioms and aesthetics of arcade-style video games. Driven in real-time by the activity of bit torrent swarms, Torrent Raiders takes place on the ad-hoc networks created by bit torrent users.
  • http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/thedumpster/ - The Dumpster is a visualization of romantic breakups collected from real blog posts in which one person had dumped another.
  • http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/idealine.shtml - Idea Line displays a timeline of net artworks, arranged in a fan of luminous threads. Each thread corresponds to a particular kind of artwork or type of technology.
  • http://vmenon.com/spa/spa.html - an interactive video installation that uses real time video capture and motion detection then abstracts it.
  • http://www.evsc.net/v6/htm/cinematic.htm - Cinematic Particles - Film dialog, taken from subtitle files, defines movement and appearance of particles that leave traces on the screen. Smoky watercolor drawings emerge from each movies individual frequency of spoken words and their letters.
  • http://www.earstudio.com/projects/listeningpost.html - "Listening Post" - an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens.

interesting media theory discussion:

  • iDC (Institute for Distributed Creativity) email list. “The research of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC) focuses on collaboration in media art, technology, and theory with an emphasis on social contexts.” We will be reading discussions that occur through this email list as well.


Assignment 2.
a. Create a username and log into the class blog. For your first comment, introduce yourself. Write a short paragraph (bio).
We will all be discussing class-related thoughts and feedback both in class and via the blog.
b. Look at some net.art pieces. Choose one that resonates or provokes you in some way and write a couple of short paragraphs about it on the blog. Tag your post "net.art" and "critique". You can use the following links to search for some net.art pieces or feel free to search on your own as well:

http://rhizome.org (under the Art tab, you'll see "Rhizome vocabulary" -- click on "netart"
http://artport.whitney.org/
http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/
http://transition.turbulence.org/networked_music_review/


[edit] WEEK 3: Feb 6-Feb 13

The Mashup.

Remixing and the collective mashup – what is a mashup or a remix? what kinds of processes have arisen and how has that affected issues of authorship and audience?

Readings:

Optional reading:

Examples:


tools:


Assignment 3.
a. Check out examples of mashups and remixes. Which ones resonate with you? Why? b. Create an account on Jumpcut. We will be using this to create our own mashup/remix. Browse around and find a remix/mashup that you like. You might try using the search tool to search on a keyword. Once you find something. Remix it. The editing tools are all browser-based and very easy to use. You can remix the original footage by moving the clips around and/or add other footage and sound into it. We will review how to do this in class. Keep it short (under 30 secs). You'll have 2 weeks to do this.

[edit] WEEK 4: Feb 13-20

Video art.

How has video art developed through the decades? What new genres have surfaced and how has this changed the process of making and presenting video art?

History:

Check out some of the historical pieces on this site. Notice the progression through the decades and how greatly the genres have changed. There are small videos available throughout these page (click on the small camera icons).

Examples shown during live broadcast on 20 Feb:

  • Second Life - ZeroG SkyDancers (2007) (9:01)
ZeroG Skydancers, produced and directed by DanCoyote Antonelli, machinimatography by Gary Hazlitt.
Shot inside the virtual world Second Life. It's an example of machinima: cinema shot inside a virtual world, like Halo or WoW or SL (machinima = machine+cinema)
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=c_gT0YDAkec>
  • Dadaikseon (The more, the better) (1988) (:51)
by Nam June Paik. Exhibited at the Guggenheim. ~68 ft high conical work -made with 1,003 TV monitors, the number symbolizing October 3rd, Korea’s national foundation day. As you ascend the spiral ramp, entire images kaleidoscopically changing on those monitors gradually come into view.
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=0_M_8z-WE6g>
  • piece by Nam June Paik (1969) (:17)
the electron gun of a television has been modified to react to the audio input from two microphones.
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=JHClCdgfkVo>
  • TV Bra (1975) (:26)
by Nam June Paik. In the work "TV Cello", Paik and cellist Charlotte Moorman stacked televisions on top one another, so that they formed the shape of an actual cello. When Moorman drew her bow across the "cello," images of both her playing, and images of other cellists playing appeared on the screens. Here's a snippet from a piece called "TV Bra".
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=C6XkiaycyPI>
  • The Reflecting Pool (1977-79) (6:50)
"All movement and change in an otherwise still scene is confined to the reflections on the surface of a pool in the woods. Suspended in time, a man hovers in a frozen, midair leap over the water, as subtle techniques of still-framing and multiple keying join disparate layers of time into a single coherent image. Viola writes that 'the piece concerns the emergence of the individual into the natural world -- a kind of baptism.'" - EAI
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxTl5Km_hbs>
  • excerpt from Abracadabra (1998) (3:11)
by Philippe Decouflé
<http://www.cie-dca.com/dca.html>
(Go to "La Galerie" then "Des Vidéos" and click on "Abracadabra 2")
  • Le p'tit bal perdu (1994) (3:48)\
by Philippe Decouflé
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=f53v4KTKV4I>
  • Walking and Falling (2:01)
video by Heidi Mortenson, music by Laurie Anderson
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w10QCwpKbg>
  • Pickelporno (1992) (12 mins)
by Pipilotti Rist. "Pickelporno" is a work about the female body and the sexual excitation. The fish eye camera moves close to the bodies of a couple. The images are covered by intensive colors, to be perceived strangely, sensually, and ambiguously by the spectator.
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=2Fn-NlD4GhU>
  • excerpt from Cremaster 3
by Matthew Barney. The Cremaster Cycle is a series of film, performance art and installation pieces.
<http://youtube.com/watch?v=JhEiqtmdk1U>
  • This Spartan Life (8:35)
"This Spartan Life" is a machinima take-off of "This American Life," with interviews shot inside the Halo video game.
episode 1: interview with Bob Stein <http://thisspartanlife.com/episodes/1001_mod3.php>

Added since live broadcast:

  • D-Fuse show reel (3:08)
The VJ group D-Fuse - demo reel, including clips from live VJ shows
<http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/d-fuse2/video.html>
  • The Journey (2003) (7:53)
by Friedrich Kirschner. A machinima piece made with Unreal Tournament 2003 by Epic Games.
<http://journey.machinimag.com/> (Click on "captured Movie" and download the zipped movie file)
  • Vertical Roll (1972)
by Joan Jonas - Jonas manipulates the grammar of the camera to create the sense of grossly disturbed physical space.
<http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/vertical-roll/video/1/>
more by Jonas <http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?JONASJ>


The above clips will continue to be played via http://mogulus.com/funksoup over the next month. It's an auto-play so feel free to access it anytime.

Want more VJ mashup?
Check these out:

  • Momo the Monster's Karate Kid remix
VJ clip shown during a NAMM party
<http://www.vimeo.com/627288/>
  • Create Digital Music's articles tagged "vj"
scroll down to see the different videos displayed
<http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/vj/>
  • VJ Central
<http://www.vjcentral.com/?mod=videos>


Assignment 4.
a. Continue/finish the mashup assignment from the previous week.

[edit] WEEKS 5 & 6: Feb 20-27 and Feb 27-March 5

Sound art.

How has sound art developed through the decades? What new genres have surfaced and how has this changed the process of making and presenting sound art?

Readings:

Optional readings:

Examples:

also see the NY Times article on her
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m1pjR1AQbc - prompter: John Zorn
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7609123142548370446 - prompter: Nathan Fuhr
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1969409013926762930 - prompter: Nathan Fuhr
"77 Million Paintings" documented on the Long Now site
related: http://reas.com/category.php?section=works - "Process" - generative visual pieces by Casey Reas
also see "Inside-The-Oscillator" at http://www.eude.nl/- under "sound-installations"
related: http://itp.nyu.edu/nime/videos.htm - videos of past NIME class showcases (New Interfaces for Musical Expression class)

Assignments 5&6.
a. Finish the mashup assignment.


[edit] WEEK 7: March 5-12

Field trip.

Assignment 7:
a. For the March 12th class, meet at the Renascence exhibition at the World Financial Center Courtyard Gallery, in the World Financial Center, 2nd Floor above the food court. 220 Vesey Street (between West Street and the Hudson River).
We will be viewing the pieces in this exhibition and discussing. You may use this for one of your event reviews.


[edit] WEEK 8: March 12-19

Spring break.


[edit] WEEK 9: March 19-26

Guest speaker: Marlon Barrios-Solano.

Marlon Barrios-Solano will be coming to the class on Wed, March 26, to talk about performance and media, as well as the intersections of dance and technology.
Marlon Barrios-Solano is a Venezuelan independent inter-media artist,designer and digital publisher, US-based since 1994. He conceives and deploys improvisational digital real-time environments and on-line collaborative platforms; projects include collaborations with musicians, choreographers, dancers, architects, theater artists, community organizations and new media artists. Marlon currently runs dance-tech.net (a social network on performance and new media) and is the new media specialist at Dance New Amsterdam in NYC. http://www.dance-tech.net/
Here is the link to the dance-tech page that he presented (lots of informative videos)


[edit] WEEK 10: March 26-April 2

Software art.
Examples:

related: http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/eno/ - Brian Eno profiled on apple.com, talking about generative processes & "77 Million Paintings" (2007)
"77 Million Paintings" documented on the Long Now site
related: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/super-mario-cloud/ - "Super Mario Clouds" (2005) by Cory Archangel - based on the «Super Mario» game for Nintendo’s NES game console. Arcangel hacked the game and modified it so that all that remains of the game are the white clouds on a blue sky.
  • http://www.bhaptic.net/ - "Will.0.w1sp" (2005) by Kirk Woolford - "Will.0.W1sp" uses real-time particle systems and motion capture to create characters which move like human beings but don’t have human form.
  • http://www.softwareartspace.com - repository of software art pieces, available for sale commercially
Torus by LeCielEstBleu
Stria by Golan Levin
R. Luke Dubois, Golan Levin, James Paterson, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Lynn Hershman Leeson
"Homographies" (2006), "Under Scan" (2005), etc.
see also http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65

Assignment 10.
a. Think about what you want to do for a final project. Write a one-paragraph proposal and email it to me
Final project: Throughout the semester, you will most likely come across ideas, arenas, individuals, etc., about which or whom you would like to know more. Common themes will develop and you will be required to complete a paper or project involving one of those themes. You can collaborate with other individuals in the class, if you so desire. The project can manifest itself in a variety of forms, including a paper, a presentation, a video piece, an sound piece, a mashup, a networked art piece, etc. This final project will give you the opportunity to delve deeper into a research area of personal interest. Document your progress and process on the class blog. Post images/sound/video on sites like flickr, youtube, etc. and link to them on the blog. Address the key theoretical concepts involved as well as your thoughts about the process and output.


[edit] WEEK 11: April 2-9

Art in public places | Hacktivism | Tactical media.
Examples:

  • http://www.bikesagainstbush.com/blog/ - "Bikes against Bush" produced by Joshua Kinberg - Bikes Against Bush is an interactive protest/performance occurring simultaneously online and on the streets of NYC during the Republican National Convention. Using a wireless Internet enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, the Bikes Against Bush bicycle can print text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan in water-soluble chalk.
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=138#video
  • http://www.papertiger.org/ - Paper Tiger Television - "Paper Tiger has been creating fun, funky, hard-hitting, investigative, compelling and truly alternative media since 1981! The programs produced at PTTV have inspired media-savvy community productions and activism around the world. Our archive includes shows that provide critical analysis of media, educate about the communications industry and highlight issues that are absent from mainstream information sources..."
http://www.papertigertv.blogspot.com/
  • http://www.next5minutes.org/about.jsp - Next 5 Minutes Festival - "Next 5 Minutes is a festival that brings together media, art and politics. Next 5 Minutes revolves around the notion of tactical media, the fusion of art, politics and media."
  • http://neural.it/ - neural.it - repository of new media art, electronic music, hacktivism
  • http://www.coolmediahottalk.net/ - “Cool Media Hot Talk Show” is a series of D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) talk shows, where the public proposes and selects the topics, speakers, questions, and determines the final scenarios of the show.
  • http://blip.tv/file/227095/ - "A Better World in Second Life?" by Josh Levy - focuses on how real-world activists are using the virtual world Second Life as a platform for social and political activism.
http://jillmagid.net/ - Jill Magid - "System Azure" http://www.systemazure.com/
http://elahi.org/ - Hasan Elahi
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-06/ps_transparency
http://deprogramming.us/sven/ - "SVEN: Surveillance Video Entertainment Network"


Assignment 11.
a. Make sure you've logged into Second Life and have created an avatar and gone through Orientation Island. We will review navigation and basic skills in class. Next week, April 16th, we'll be having class in Second Life with guest speaker Nathan Freitas.

b. If you haven't emailed me your final project proposal, please do so. Write a one-paragraph proposal and email it to me
Final project: Throughout the semester, you will most likely come across ideas, arenas, individuals, etc., about which or whom you would like to know more. Common themes will develop and you will be required to complete a paper or project involving one of those themes. You can collaborate with other individuals in the class, if you so desire. The project can manifest itself in a variety of forms, including a paper, a presentation, a video piece, an sound piece, a mashup, a networked art piece, etc. This final project will give you the opportunity to delve deeper into a research area of personal interest. Document your progress and process on the class blog. Post images/sound/video on sites like flickr, youtube, etc. and link to them on the blog. Address the key theoretical concepts involved as well as your thoughts about the process and output.

[edit] WEEK 12: April 9-16

Second Life class. Guest speaker: Nathan Freitas.

We will be holding class inside Second Life on April 16th. Nathan Freitas, founder of Cruxy.com, will be our guest speaker.

Over the last ten years, Nathan's career has spanned the academic, corporate, and non-profit worlds, solving difficult problems through the thoughtful application of technology. His work has been built into Palm handhelds, on display at SIGGRAPH, included in Wikipedia, and covered in media ranging from Boing Boing and Slashdot, to the New York Times and Howard Rheingold's book Smart Mobs.
Nathan graduated from the University of California, at Santa Barbara, where he studied Music Composition and Digital Signal Processing at CREATE and the College of Creative Studies. He began programming at the age of six on a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, and founded his first technology company, ThinAirApps with Jon Oakes, just eighteen years later. They were acquired by Palm in December 2001.
These days he provides guidance and assistance to non-profits, acting as a volunteer and Board Member to groups such as the Students for a Free Tibet, Mobile Active, and The Ruckus Society. He has also launched a new business, Cruxy, released an open-source application and Media Playlisting Service, and started to actively videoblog.
http://cruxy.com/

Transcript from the class: media:SLclass_16apr08.rtf
Images from the class


[edit] WEEK 13: April 16-23

Media & Performance.

Optional reading:


Examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merce_Cunningham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XzxE2BGbf4 - excerpt from "BiPed"
http://www.charactermotion.com/gallery/index.html - LifeForms/DanceForms gallery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ3_AOBX6TM - excerpt from "16 Revolutions"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V399DoWL850 - excerpt from "Loop Diver"
http://www.ubu.com/film/monk.html - Meredith Monk
  • http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/ - STELARC - Australian-based performance artist who incorporates themes of cyborgization and other human-machine interfaces in his work.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TYtMlNq1SsM - exoskeleton (6-legged robot)
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/16/performance-artist-stelarc-implants-third-ear-in-forearm/ - third ear in forearm
http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/115 - suspension piece
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/stelarc/a29-extended_body.html - CTHEORY interview with Stelarc
http://radiowonderland.org/ - Radio Wonderland

[edit] Resources

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